If Bechtle has been in touch about buying your company, you are talking to Germany’s largest IT system house and the fifth most active acquirer of IT services companies in our records worldwide. Founded in 1983 and listed since 2000, Bechtle ran €8.6bn of business volume in 2025 through more than 120 operating companies in 14 countries, and it has made 126 acquisitions since its founding, 49 of them from 2015 to 2025.
Most of what it buys is a regional system house or a specialist with a few dozen staff. The businesses it bought had a median revenue of €14.5M in the year of purchase, and Bechtle paid a median of 0.97 times that revenue. In this post we look at what Bechtle buys, where, what it pays, how it structures a deal and what happens to a company once it joins.
Volume, spend and prices come from Bechtle’s annual reports for 2015 to 2025, which name every acquisition and the price paid, deal by deal or in groups, and from its 2026 investor presentations. Our deal database, sourced from Mergermarket, holds 36 of the 49 acquisitions and supplies the comparison with the wider market.
In our view Bechtle is a disciplined buyer that pays close to the market median, almost entirely at closing. Its filings publish what it paid, so an owner can test an offer against Bechtle’s own record before the first price conversation.
Bechtle Subsidiaries and Structure
Bechtle owns more than 120 operating companies, most of them in Germany, and earns about 43 percent of its business volume abroad, with France, the Netherlands and Switzerland its largest foreign markets. It sells IT through two channels: local IT system houses that design, install and run infrastructure for companies and public bodies, and an e-commerce and trading arm, led by Bechtle direct, that sells hardware and software in all 14 countries. In 2025 it reorganized around countries, with one board member responsible for every sales channel in each market, and it now reports four regional segments:
| Segment | Revenue 2025 | EBIT margin 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| Deutschland | €3,738M | 6.2% |
| Frankreich | €638M | 2.6% |
| Benelux | €759M | 4.4% |
| Other Europe | €1,271M | 4.3% |
Group revenue was €6,406M in 2025 under IFRS, against €8,596M of business volume, the measure Bechtle uses for its targets, and profit before tax was €324M. The Bechtle name is the core brand in every country, and some acquired names live on: Inmac WStore and Bechtle Comsoft in France and PQR in the Netherlands.
Acquisitions sit with the chief executive, Thomas Olemotz, whose board portfolio includes mergers and acquisitions and corporate development. Konstantin Ebert, the chief operating officer responsible for every country outside Germany and Austria, was presented as designated chief executive at the September 2026 capital markets day. The founding family holds 35 percent of the shares, an anchor shareholder in Bechtle’s own words.
How Much Bechtle Buys
Bechtle’s annual reports name 49 acquisitions from 2015 to 2025, an average of four to five a year, with a low of two in 2021 and a high of nine in 2019. Two of the 49 were purchases of business units: a part of IBM’s German services business with more than 300 staff in 2019, and the business customers of a Dutch Apple reseller in 2020.
Of the 49, our records hold 36. All 36 match a deal in Bechtle’s filings, and the 13 absent from our database are the two business-unit purchases and eleven companies in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the Netherlands. The counts, countries and lines on this page follow the filings; the split between IT services and software follows our records.
Bechtle committed €1,147M to acquisitions from 2015 to 2025, counting earn-outs at fair value, and €703M of it in the last five years. Two years stand out: 2018, when it bought a French e-commerce platform, and 2023, when it bought seven companies in six countries. Bechtle’s own summary is about €1.5bn of acquired business volume over the past ten years.
The money for more is in place. Net debt was €21M at the end of 2025, Bechtle issued its first convertible bond in 2023, and in June 2026 it placed €450M of promissory note loans, describing the funding as flexibility for its international M&A strategy. Cash paid for acquisitions, net of cash acquired, rose from €108M in 2024 to €158M in 2025.
What Size of Company Bechtle Buys
Since 2021 Bechtle’s annual reports have given the full-year revenue of each business it buys, and our database covers most of the earlier deals. Across the 36 acquisitions with a revenue figure, the median target had revenue of €14.5M in the year it was bought, with an interquartile range of €5.5M to €32.1M. Twenty of the 36 had revenue below €20M, and seven had more than €50M. Where Bechtle states headcount, the median target employed 43 people.
That fits Bechtle’s own description of its targets: mainly small to mid-sized system integrators, with larger companies in the frame as well. The larger deals build a position in a country, and three of the 49 cost more than €90M each: a French e-commerce platform in 2018, a French system integrator with 340 staff and a security operations center in 2023, and an Italian partner of Dassault Systemes in 2025.
For an owner, size works in two directions. A business with €5M to €30M of revenue sits in the middle of what Bechtle buys, and Bechtle has the people and the process to close a deal of that size. Bechtle also prices size, as the multiples below show: the smallest deals carried the lowest prices relative to revenue.
What Bechtle Buys
Bechtle states the aim of every acquisition in its annual report. Grouped by what each company did, the 49 break down as follows:
| Linie | Akquisitionen |
|---|---|
| IT system houses, infrastructure and managed services | 24 |
| Business applications, data and software services | 9 |
| Computer-aided design and product lifecycle management (CAD and PLM) | 7 |
| IT e-commerce, procurement and Apple resale | 5 |
| Security specialists | 2 |
| Leasing and AI software | 2 |
Half of the deals are system houses: companies that sell, install and run hardware, networks, cloud and workplace services for mid-sized companies and public bodies, which is the business Bechtle itself runs. In our records 29 of the 36 are IT services companies, led by systems integration with 13, and seven are software companies.
The second thread is software resale for Dassault Systemes. Bechtle has bought SOLIDWORKS resellers and related software in Germany, Switzerland, the Benelux countries, the United Kingdom and Italy, added Hungary in 2026, and now runs its PLM business in nine European countries. Smaller threads run through IT security, Apple resale for business customers and, since 2023, a majority stake in a German AI developer.
The criteria in Bechtle’s filings are short. A target has to strengthen the group’s market position in a region, with a customer group or in a capability, and the stated aims are wider IT skills, stronger presence in important markets and customer groups, and market share. Its October 2026 investor presentation adds the current rationale: operational resilience, lower dependency on individual markets, more service business in existing markets, acquired customer relationships and skilled staff, with system houses and specialists named as the target types.
Where Bechtle Buys
Bechtle bought in eight countries from 2015 to 2025, all of them in Europe. Germany leads with 16 acquisitions, followed by Switzerland with 10, the Netherlands with 7, Austria with 5, the United Kingdom with 4, Spain with 3, and France and Italy with 2 each.
The map changed in 2021, when Bechtle widened its M&A strategy to take its service business beyond Germany, Austria and Switzerland. From 2015 to 2020, 24 of its 26 acquisitions were in those three countries; from 2021 to 2025, 16 of 23 were elsewhere. By Bechtle’s count, the businesses it bought outside its home region since 2022 brought €197M of business volume in the Netherlands, €138M in the United Kingdom, €132M in Italy, €121M in Spain and €85M in France, with €50M more in Portugal in early 2026.
The stated goal is the full offering, trade and services together, in all 14 countries where Bechtle operates. It offered both in nine at the start of 2026. In Belgium, Ireland, Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary it sells mainly through its trading business, and its 2025 annual report names Southern and Eastern Europe as the focus of M&A in 2026, with bolt-ons in existing service countries still open. For a system house in one of those five countries, Bechtle is a buyer looking for a platform.
What Bechtle Pays: Acquisition Multiples
Bechtle publishes the price of what it buys. Its annual reports give the total consideration for each year’s acquisitions, earn-outs included at fair value, with a separate price for 32 of the 49 deals, and since 2021 they give the full-year revenue of each business in the year it was bought. In our wider IT services data, a price is public for 23.5 percent of deals. Matching Bechtle’s prices to revenue, with our database supplying revenue for deals from 2015 to 2019, gives 25 acquisitions with a multiple.
The median is 0.97 times revenue, with an interquartile range of 0.64x to 1.14x. Price rises with size: deals below €10M carried a median of 0.60x (six deals), deals of €10M to €50M 0.97x (twelve), and deals above €50M 1.12x (seven). Services businesses, from system houses to application and security specialists, priced at a median of 0.94x across 14 deals; the CAD, PLM and software companies, including the AI stake, at 1.20x across seven. The four resellers and e-commerce businesses sat lowest. Two software deals, one of them the AI stake, priced far above the rest, and leaving them out moves the median from 0.97x to 0.95x. Every target was a private company or a unit of a larger group.
The filings also give a view across whole years. For the 22 businesses Bechtle bought from 2021 to 2025, leaving aside the AI stake, it paid €671M in total for €778M of full-year revenue, 0.86 times revenue, with yearly figures between 0.65x and 1.04x. Disclosure covers small and large deals alike, so these figures describe Bechtle’s ordinary pricing.
Across the IT services deals in our valuation research, the median is 1.1x revenue (1,051 deals), with 1.0x for strategic acquirers and 1.3x for private equity buyers. Bechtle pays close to the strategic median and a little below the market as a whole.
Revenue multiples in IT services vary with margin. Bechtle’s filings carry revenue for each business and leave out EBITDA, so the EBITDA view is arithmetic: 0.97x revenue equals 9.7x EBITDA at a 10 percent margin, close to the 10.4x median in our research, and 19.4x at a 5 percent margin. Value-added resellers priced at a median of 0.5x revenue in our research, against 1.1x for systems integrators and managed service providers, and our research puts businesses with double-digit growth and 10 to 15 percent EBITDA margins at about 12 to 14 times EBITDA. A services business with that profile has the strongest case for a price above Bechtle’s median.
Have an offer from Bechtle?
If you have an offer from Bechtle or one of its companies on your desk, talk to us before you answer it. Bechtle is a strong buyer: it has completed 126 acquisitions, pays almost all of the price at closing and keeps local presence and customer relationships at the center of its model. Its prices sit close to the median for strategic buyers, about 1x revenue, and lower for the smallest deals, while private equity buyers paid a median of 1.3x revenue in our research. Our job is to find the buyers who will compete with Bechtle, including those who pay more, and to settle the terms that decide your role after closing while there is still room to move them. Call us before you sign a letter of intent.
How Bechtle Structures a Deal
Bechtle buys whole companies. Of the 49 acquisitions in its filings, 47 were for 100 percent at closing. In 2019 it bought 75 percent of a Swiss system house, with matching put and call options on the rest, and bought the remainder the following year; in 2023 it took 51 percent of an AI developer whose founders kept the rest, and gained voting control in 2024.
The price is paid mostly at closing. Of the €1,147M Bechtle committed from 2015 to 2025, €50M, about 4 percent, was contingent consideration at fair value, and its 2021 acquisitions were paid entirely in fixed consideration. Where Bechtle does use an earn-out, the terms can be strict: its 2019 and 2020 reports describe contingent payments due only when the agreed earnings targets are met in full, and in 2019 it wrote off an earn-out from a 2018 deal because the target was missed. The 2025 earn-out in its filings runs on two years of EBITDA, between a floor and a cap.
The process is set at group level. Bechtle runs due diligence before each deal, prepares and approves acquisitions under fixed rules for responsibility and sign-off, and integrates them under a post-merger concept, and its own risk report rates the risk from acquisitions as medium. It has also taken over pension plans that came with Swiss and German acquisitions, and its purchase of IBM business units came with a five-year agreement under which Bechtle delivers infrastructure services on IBM’s behalf.
For an owner, this structure moves the negotiation to the headline price and the terms around it. With a small earn-out, most of the value is fixed at signing, so the price and the warranty terms carry the weight. Where an earn-out appears, read the definition: a target that pays only when met in full turns a near miss into a full loss.
What Happens After Closing
Bechtle’s model rests on local companies. Its 2024 annual report describes the formula as keeping regional presence, closeness to customers and entrepreneurial agility, while it merges individual system houses into larger units to gain scale, and the filings show both outcomes.
Some companies kept running as before. Bechtle said an Austrian network specialist bought in 2021 would continue unchanged in the market at first, a Benelux CAD reseller stayed an independent company, and a Portuguese system integrator bought in 2026 kept its two brands. The management of PQR, the Dutch system house bought in 2022, stayed in leading roles, and the founders of its Hungarian acquisition remained in charge.
Others were folded into larger units. A German school IT specialist was merged into an operating subsidiary in the year of purchase, an Austrian IT services firm went straight into Bechtle’s Austrian system house, a Dutch hardware partner was fully integrated into PQR, and a Dutch VMware specialist was lined up to merge with PQR. Steffen, a Swiss system house bought in 2016, appears as Bechtle Steffen Switzerland in our records three years later.
Bechtle also sells what it chooses to leave. It sold a German tempest hardware specialist in January 2025, within three years of buying it, and it sold three other subsidiaries from 2015 to 2021.
The group around you is changing as well. In the twelve months to June 2026, 1,033 people joined Bechtle through acquisitions while its organic headcount fell 1.4 percent, and its 2030 plan relies on productivity gains and harmonized processes across the group. Ask Bechtle early which systems, processes and reporting your company would adopt, and when.
Bechtle’s Competitive Position
In our view Bechtle is the German-speaking consolidator with the widest European reach. Among the active buyers of system houses in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, it is the one buying most across the rest of Western Europe. It ranks fifth in our ranking of IT services acquirers with 28 acquisitions of IT services companies from 2015 to 2025, behind Accenture, Sesa, Evergreen Services Group and Cognizant.
In its own markets the competition is real. In our records, for systems integrators, managed service providers, resellers and cloud services firms in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, the hosting group dogado made 15 acquisitions from 2015 to 2025, Datagroup 11, Bechtle 10, NETGO 9 and Convotis 8, with Accenture and Cancom also active. Across nine Western European countries in the same lines, Accenture leads with 22 and Bechtle follows with 18, ahead of Sesa with 12.
For a seller, that field matters more than Bechtle’s size. Over 27 percent of the IT services deals in our valuation research involved a financial sponsor as buyer or as backer of a buy-and-build platform, and sponsors paid the highest median multiples in that research. A process that brings two or three buyers to the table tests Bechtle’s price against the market, and our pages on wer Systemintegratoren kauft, Managed Service Provider und Value-Added Reseller name the active buyers in each line.
Is This a Good Time to Sell to Bechtle?
Bechtle is buying and has said so. It has completed three acquisitions in 2026, in Portugal, Hungary and the Netherlands, and its 2030 ambition, business volume above €10bn and profit before tax above €500M, names M&A as one of three levers for lifting its margin. Profit before tax fell from €374M in 2023 to €324M in 2025, a gap of €176M to that target, and the promissory note loans of June 2026 fund the acquisitions that help close it.
The wider market is mixed: IT services deals in our research closed at a median of 9.5x EBITDA and 1.0x revenue in 2025, below the 12.7x of 2023, and the first half of 2026 shows a median of 1.3x revenue on only 22 deals, an early indication. The latest figures are in our Bewertungsmultiplikatoren für IT-Dienstleistungen Analyse.
The case for selling to Bechtle now is strongest for three kinds of owner: a system house in Southern or Eastern Europe, where Bechtle has named its 2026 focus; a specialist in CAD and PLM, cloud or software, where Bechtle’s prices have run above its median; and a founder who wants most of the price at closing. For the owner of a small hardware reseller, the record shows lower prices, and building recurring services first may be worth more than an early sale.
Why You Need an M&A Advisor When Bechtle Approaches You
Bechtle has bought 49 companies since 2015 and runs each deal through a fixed process; the owner across the table is selling one company. The buyer knows what it paid for every business it bought, and so can you, because its annual reports publish the prices.
Start with that record, and establish what the business is worth before the first offer arrives, from Bechtle’s prices, from comparable transactions in your line and country, and from how a buyer will read your margin, your recurring revenue and your share of hardware resale. Then bring in one or two other buyers, at least one with a different model: a private equity platform building in your country, or a strategic buyer that needs your region. A second bid tests the first.
Negotiate the terms as hard as the price: the working capital mechanism, the warranties, any earn-out definition and its thresholds, and what happens to your brand, your team and your own role after closing. The figures on this page describe a market; your company will be priced in a negotiation.
That is the work we do for owners of IT services businesses while they keep running the company, and running it well through the process matters, because how the business performs ends up in the price. For how an approach fits into a wider sale, see zum Verkauf eines IT-Dienstleistungsunternehmens und strategische versus finanzielle Käufer.
Über Aventis Advisors
Aventis Advisors is an M&A advisor for technology and IT services companies. We believe the world would be better off with fewer but better quality M&A deals, done at the right moment for the company and its owners. Our goal is to provide honest, insight-driven advice that lays out all the options clearly, including the option to keep the status quo.
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